Local H - Ham Fisted - Review

                                    Local H - Ham Fisted

Seeing as I've stolen one of their song titles for the title of this blog it only seems right to kick things off with a Local H review, a two man band from Zion a suburban town in Illinois. Ham Fisted (1995) is singer/guitarist Scott Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels' debut and it really doesn't come across like the work of only two people. Lucas hit upon the idea of modifying his guitar with bass pickups, it obviously worked and you really don't miss the bass player. The sound is actually nicely layered with some space for the guitar and Lucas' phantom bass; on later albums they added more instrumentation and achieve a pretty big sound. I have no idea how they pull it off live. Needless to say they thankfully sound nothing like The White Stripes.

At this point in their career Local H were firmly in the grunge mould, the pissy Nirvana kind as opposed to the earnest Pearl Jam variation - grunge was always a lousy genre definition. So we get crunchy, fuzzy, catchy riffs, the drummer hammering the kit and of course plenty of sarcastic angsty lyrics. It may not be all that original and maybe the vocals do occasionally remind you of Kurt Cobain, but the band have their own merits and know how to get a song stuck (jammed) in your head. "Cynic" is built around the grooviest riff you could imagine from a supposedly depressed grunge band, whilst "Mayonnaise and Malaise" sounds like a great 90's alt rock anthems that never was. If it had come out in 1993 it might have won the band a big audience, however in 95 it was probably lost in a sea of 'post grunge' acts (another weird genre that one...) Best of all is "Manipulator", its got about 3 lines worth of lyrics on repetition but the chorus totally soars above the metal dirge beneath (dirge in the good sense - naturally). Things do dip a little towards the end of the record, but the last track "Grrlfriend" is a pleasant acoustic rumination on the pains of falling in love with a committed feminist. 

Whilst some other alternative rock bands of this era sounded laboured, like it was an effort to be a misanthropic slacker, (if you're doing it right it should be effortless) and throw meaningless lyrics around in an attempt to sound profound, Local H feels pretty honest to me. Apparently Zion is a shitty place to live and their boredom and general dis-satisfaction seems genuine. With their next album "As Good As Dead" they would turn that sense of desolation gained from a life spent in Zion into a concept album. A grunge concept album? Well Nirvana never tried that...